Balancing Interfacial Reactions through Regulating p-Band Centers by an Indium Tin Oxide Protective Layer for Stable Zn Metal Anodes

Metallic zinc (Zn) is considered as one of the most attractive anode materials for the post-lithium metal battery systems owing to the high theoretical capacity, low cost, and intrinsic safety. However, the Zn dendrites and parasitic side reaction impede its application. Herein, we propose a new principle of regulating p-band center of metal oxide protective coating to balance Zn adsorption energy and migration energy barrier for effective Zn deposition and stripping. Experimental results and theoretical calculations indicate that benefiting from the uniform zincophilic nucleation sites and fast Zn transport on indium tin oxide (ITO), highly stable and reversible Zn anode can be achieved. As a result, the I-Zn symmetrical cell achieves highly reversible Zn deposition/stripping with an extremely low overpotential of 9mV and a superior lifespan over 4000h. The Cu/I-Zn asymmetrical cell exhibits a long lifetime of over 4000cycles with high average coulombic efficiency of 99.9%. Furthermore, the assembled I-Zn/AC full cell exhibits an excellent lifetime for 70000cycles with nearly 100% capacity retention. This work provides a general strategy and new insight for the construction of efficient Zn anode protection layer.